Numb Too Long
by Arkylie Killingstad
Summary: When some ghosts from Finch's past catch up with him, their method of revenge is chilling... and may have permanent consequences if his allies can't get to him in time.
1. Movement

_**Content Warnings:** Torture, non-consensual alcohol use, discussion of suicide, some harsh language. This is primarily a Hurt/Comfort fic where Finch is kidnapped and tortured. The method of torture is severe, but I don't consider it graphic or gory (even though it could have gotten gory if it hadn't been interrupted)._

* * *

There's a point where a person's mistakes catch up with them—and your life is replete with the kind of mistakes that like to track you down.

The kind that get you captured.

This isn't the first time that you've been tied up, but it's the first time you've been tumbled into the trunk of a car. The first time that physical force has been used against you, instead of mere threats. It's bizarre, to have enough kidnappings under your belt that you can compare and contrast them. Prior to this afternoon—starting, in point of fact, with that very first terrifying experience—it has _always_ been threats.

 _I won't shoot you. I'll shoot someone else._

 _Make a sound, I start hurting innocents._

Root called it your "flaw," and, at first, you rejected that idea: How could caring about other people be a flaw? But you've come to understand the idea, to accept it as a bitter truth. You hold the knowledge that could change the world, or destroy it; risking that destruction because you can't bear to see an innocent die is… irrational. It gives evil men power they should never have, and puts at risk a much greater group of equally innocent people.

And yet.

There's a moment, the moment you first resigned yourself to being in the power of someone you could have stopped. It would only have taken a shout, a few words; Root might well have escaped custody, but you would have been free, the fear and danger behind you.

At that moment, as you sat there in deliberate silence, heart sinking as you watched the policeman pay for his coffee and smile at the waitress and walk out of the diner, some small part of you shattered forever.

 _I'll shoot someone else._

That's all she had to say. All she's ever had to say, or even to imply. It's been enough to get you to go passive, to cooperate—even, one time, to call the police on your own partner, just to keep him out of the way. The people who have wanted to capture you have never needed to grab you by the arm or shove you against a car or pull a bag over your head.

Not that the Okamotos would know that. They've been in prison for a good twenty-eight years; it's understandable that they'd be somewhat behind the times.

So you're in their trunk, arms behind your back, your own weight cutting off circulation to half your body; you're bracing with one leg to keep from rolling onto your stomach, because being face-down is somewhat more literal when you've got titanium pins that prevent your neck from turning sideways.

And you're already having trouble breathing through the cotton that's pinned to your face, catching the warmth of each breath; in here, in the increasing heat of this metal box, it's _stifling_. As you focus on taking long, slow breaths through the fabric, you're also fighting to stay in charge of your emotions, to stave off the growing panic as the minutes stretch out and the car gets farther and farther from your friends.

Sweat stings at your eyes. More of it runs down your forehead, and a shudder runs through you at the image of Fusco, crumpled to the sidewalk, blood pooling over the concrete. Seeing him go down had frozen you in your tracks, but he'd been—he'd been moving again, just a little, right before Ken grabbed you and Daichi pulled a bag over your head. So he's _probably_ okay. You take first aid classes twice a year; you know that head wounds bleed more than other wounds do. There's a lot of blood vessels, so even a little cut can look ghastly.

That knowledge has never made you feel better at the sight of Reese all bloodied up—and it does little to staunch the worry over Fusco.

Still, Shaw's got medical training—more than just the basics of first aid—and she had been only minutes away; you'd been on GPS double-checking her whereabouts, and Reese's, when the car pulled up beside you. _She's found him by now, she's got the training to help him, to get him the help he needs…_

But what that means for you, right now, is that the amount of time it takes Shaw to care for Fusco is the amount of delay they have in getting on your trail. Which could, conceivably, mean the difference between finding you in time and… not. You still don't know what your former associates might have planned.

The rapid shifts in speed and direction have been murder on your neck, but then there's a few agonizing seconds where you're pressed to the back as the car accelerates up to what you can only guess are freeway speeds, and then you're on a long, steady portion with a smoother road and more gentle curves. So you're on the Expressway, although there's no telling which direction.

How long have you been in here? Ten minutes? Fifteen? It hasn't been half an hour yet, you don't think, but already the pain in your lower back has shifted from mild through difficult-to-ignore and on toward excruciating. Even so, you've dealt with pain this bad just from the aftermath of a particularly strenuous day in the field, the kind of cases where John's tasks are too complex or too numerous to handle by himself.

John. John will certainly come for you, the moment he learns that you've been taken. But he's two and a half hours away. Whatever the Okamotos have planned for you… is it going to take that long? If it is, you're not going to like it… but you can hold out. Probably. You've gotten good at that. Not that you'll ever be comfortable getting kidnapped—really, who would?—but you do have some practice in it. Just have to stay calm and wait for rescue.

And keep breathing.

It probably won't be two hours, unless Fusco was badly injured. Shaw was close, and Fusco saw them take you; your friends are on the trail. It's taken you quite a while to get to the point where "trust" is even part of your vocabulary when it comes to other human beings, but you trust them to put your safety above almost every other concern. So you trust that rescue is coming; you just don't know how soon.

Being battered about this way has given you an odd sort of nostalgia for the first time Root had you in her power. At least being zip-tied to a chair hadn't given you nausea or bruises—though it hadn't taken even an hour to get to the stabbing back pains. Due to your injuries, you need to switch position frequently, but she'd kept you in that chair long enough that you lost track of the hours, eventually measuring time by the gasps of the man that she was slowly torturing to death before your eyes.

This darkness can hardly compare to that horror; at least you're the only one at risk right now. But the pain is so much worse. There's nothing here like the cushioning of a car seat; every bump and swerve knocks your head against the thin carpet—and the metal beneath it. The Expressway's a bit of an improvement, but you still get unexpected jolts of pain that make you dizzy and bring tears to your eyes.

With your hands tied behind you, you haven't been able to find a better position, a way to shield yourself from the unpredictable motion. Lying on your stomach would be impossible; rolling onto your bound arms would put even more strain on your lower back, and you're not convinced that you could hold your head up all that well. Curling up into the best fetal position you can manage has helped, a little; tensing up hasn't, so you've done your best to go limp, with just the one leg still bracing you, keeping you in the best position you can maintain.

The sound shifts—almost like you're going through a tunnel. Could be the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel… or the bottom layer of the Verrazano. Up to Manhattan or over to Staten Island… you've been through both of them, many times, and yet you've never tried to tell them apart by sound alone, much less from the muffled sounds that make it into the trunk.

Whichever it is, though, it's only a couple of minutes later before the sound's back to normal, and then you're moving off and slowing down, back to city traffic. No… quieter, you think. Fewer cars. It takes you a few minutes to pick up on the other key sound—or lack of it: no horns. Not Manhattan, then. But the roads aren't in great repair, and the constant and unexpected changes of pressure on your bound arms is a growing agony.

It's increasingly difficult to stay calm and let your body relax, or to call up the mental tricks you use daily to keep from dwelling on the pain. And as the ride gets longer, you get hotter, and sweatier, and dizzier. You start to lose track of time.

Eventually, though, there's a few more swerves, and then the car slows and turns, rocks to a stop and then moves forward another few feet before the engine cuts out.

You breathe.

Car doors—you feel the rock and dip of the car and then hear the slams. A moment later, the sound and feel of the trunk popping open. Fear makes your stomach clench.

One of them grabs you under the armpits, drags you up and out with no concern for your comfort; hardly surprising. They've got you on your feet, now, and they're muscling you along, up a short set of stairs, in through a doorway… the air heats up a little, not much but noticeably, and it's not hard to guess that you've just left a garage.

You stumble along without resistance, letting them direct you through some amount of space before they're turning you and taking you down some stairs—one in front of you, one behind. Steep stairs, and cooler air— _much_ cooler, this time, quite chilling to your damp skin; you can make out the whirr of an air conditioning unit. A basement, most likely.

One of them holds you by both arms, pushing your body to one side and the other while his brother maneuvers your legs, pulling off your shoes, your socks. And then he guides your feet up and over something, some thin piece of plastic maybe, until you're standing on a surface that is not the floor of this basement.

They untie your hands and remove your suit jacket right before forcing you down into a chair; the returning circulation is just starting to get painful as they tie your knees.

Ankles.

Elbows.

Chest.

You don't struggle; there's no point.

* * *

After the ropework is done, there's the rustle of fabric, for a couple of minutes.

And then the bag comes off.

"Well, hey, Professor," one of them says, jovially, before you've blinked the spots out of your eyes enough to tell them apart. "Care for a drink?"

The smell of vodka hits you hard, and your stomach turns over.


	2. Payback

_**Content Warning:** This is the torture chapter; it's painful, and meant to do harm, but I don't think of it as particularly gory. The torture starts more than halfway through this chapter, right after the line "Let's get this started," though it only really kicks in after "The kind of punishment you actually deserve." There is a lot of backstory in this chapter, and the villains' motivation is woven throughout the chapter, but you could probably skip the torture part if it bothers you._

* * *

You're tied to a chair in a chilled room, and Ken Okamoto, thirty-two years older than when you last saw him in person, is holding out a glass of vodka. Filled with what looks like three or four shots of the stuff.

Vodka is one liquor that you've never tasted as an adult. You were still a minor—as was Daichi—when you toasted your new venture with a few shots of "the good stuff" (as Ken called it, and you two were choking too much to argue with the term, forcing it down repeatedly to show that you were _mature_ ).

That was a week before it all went wrong. So vodka is ingrained in your memory as a reminder of one of the worst mistakes you've ever made.

Which is exactly why he's doing this, isn't it?

"Come on, now," he says, "it's been a few decades since we shared a drink. Here, I'll even take a sip myself." And he does, a good big sip before he holds the glass out to you again, expectantly.

You keep your lips closed, gaze fixed firmly on his eyes.

His smile fades. "Look, it's not poisoned. I don't hate you _that_ much. Dai and I want a little payback, sure, but we're not planning to _kill_ you."

"What _are_ you planning to do?" you ask, quietly, taking in the sparsely decorated room and the two large freezers in the back corners. There's nothing else in here that gives you the slightest clue as to what's coming.

"I'll be glad to explain, as soon as you've shared a drink with us. That's how this whole thing started, after all, and it seems fitting to end it the same way."

When you simply stare at him, he grimaces; he never _was_ that good at controlling his expression. Daichi steps up and takes the glass from him, shooting him a look as Ken moves out of view. Then the younger Okamoto looks you over. His face is calm, solemn. It's an odd look on him, because he was the type to fixate on _causes_ , which he took seriously until some new fascination caught his eye, but he never—in all the time you knew him—really _looked_ like he was serious.

Then again, he did just spend three decades behind bars. It's not hard to imagine that that could change a person, especially one as sensitive as Dai.

"Are you on narcotics?" he asks. "Because I can understand if you don't want to mix alcohol with prescription drugs. Painkillers, antidepressants, blood thinners… insulin?"

"I'm not in the habit of sharing drinks with people who have me tied to a chair," you counter.

"Well." He accepts a second glass from Ken's hand; Ken's holding one as well. "Assuming you're not in additional danger from drug interactions, then here's the deal: We're going to drink to the memory of the girl I left behind. And then I'll tell you why we brought you here."

Your stomach clenches tight again at the mention of Iffaa.

* * *

When you first ran across the Okamotos, Daichi was stuck on this Lebanese girl. She'd been a foreign exchange student, gone home two years before they met you, and Dai simply would not shut _up_ about her. Avoiding the massive fees of international calling was what had pulled him into phone phreaking to begin with; he called her once a month, at a specific time, from a different payphone each time, and they exchanged what letters they could, in between.

It was impossible to hang around Daichi without getting filled in on the details of Iffaa's life. Even at the arcade, shooting down aliens or centipedes—or playing his favorite game, _Frogger_ —he'd be discussing her hair, or her eyes, or her interest (two years prior) in Pink Floyd and Thin Lizzy.

In his darker moments, he'd talk about the little war-torn area she came from. The area that Dai was dead set on "rescuing" her from, as the civil war flared and the area got increasingly unstable.

In fact, were it not for that girl, your ideas for racking up millions by scamming banks never would have gone anywhere. You'd idly discuss the possibility with Ken while playing _Wolfenstein_ , but you didn't really have any specific plans; it was Daichi who realized that acquiring ten thousand dollars might go a long way toward achieving his most heartfelt goal.

The summer you ran into Daichi—noticed him taking apart a payphone, gave him a few tips, struck up a cautious friendship that soon extended to his older brother as well—you'd just finished a year at MIT, having brazenly hacked yourself onto their enrollment list before you'd even found an apartment. It was the birth of Harold Wren. It would be another year and a half before you met Arthur, before he dragged you over to meet Nathan. The young farm boy masquerading as the reclusive rich, meeting the young rich boy with dozens of followers, who valued anyone who connected with his brain and not just his trust fund.

Before that point, before Nathan set your compass, you'd been rudderless. As a child, you hadn't thought much about your talents; as a young teen, you had expected someday to see your father's eyes light up at the tales of your success, the kind of exploits that he knew you would someday be capable of… but that hope had been taken from you, even before you'd been forced to go on the run. Unable to go home, you were drifting; the only constant besides paranoia was improving your skills, and you had barely begun to actually put them to use before that summer.

Paying for tuition had been a simple task, finding nearly untraceable ways to use the fledgling internet to funnel numbers around, siphon off just enough money to meet tuition and account for your modest needs, while you figured out what else to do with your life. You'd been comfortable enough; the thought of amassing millions was still just a daydream, not very real at the time.

It was Daichi who pushed you to actually put together a competent plan, who got the train started down the track that led to the brothers' eventual incarceration.

What Dai isn't aware of is what happened after the plan went to hell.

After Dai and Ken got caught, you fled Ohio, sloughing off that old identity like snakeskin. The money was yours, unexpectedly, and something you didn't have to share three ways; you went from providing for your needs on a weekly basis to erecting a life around yourself as though you'd had the money for decades. Surreptitiously keeping a finger on the pulse of the tech wars, you invested with pinpoint accuracy, and saw thirty thousand dollars bloom into millions, then _tens_ of millions, more than you had ever expected to have at your disposal—and that was before Nathan talked you into forming IFT.

But your increasingly luxurious lifestyle had come at great cost: the Okamotos. At the time, they had been the closest thing you had to friends—and they had lost it all because of you. And there wasn't a damn thing you could do about it on your own. Messing with their prison sentences proved impossible with just hacking, and you hadn't yet developed the skills or the unabashed courage to tackle anything more hands-on.

So you'd tried to make it up to Daichi with the only thing that you could reasonably manage on your own: You tracked down Iffaa and her remaining family (an uncle and young cousin) and gotten them the hell out of Dodge. Set them up in New Jersey, provided the funds necessary to start over, ensured that they would never be left wanting.

It could have been a fairytale ending for that little family, except that her uncle got killed in a car crash that left Iffaa—not yet 21—missing an eye. But accidents are, by nature, impossible to predict. You'd given them the best chance they had, and a far better one than remaining in a country at war. After you covered the doctor's bills, Iffaa picked up her life and raised her cousin, eventually got married, started a family of her own. You've kept tabs on her through the years, just to reassure yourself that she's doing okay.

Knowing all of this would likely put Daichi's mind at ease. More or less.

And you can't tell him any of it.

* * *

Talking with Iffaa, if only briefly, had made it clear that she had never thought of Dai in a romantic light. An amusing pen pal, to be sure, but their mindsets and worldviews were far too different to provide a stable foundation for any sort of long-term relationship beyond friendship. If Dai had been told that at the time… well, you didn't know him long enough or deeply enough to really predict how he'd act.

And that's the problem. That endearing, annoying, energetic young man with idealism seeping out through his pores has spent three decades being molded into… something else. And you don't know what that is.

Two years ago, Reese went up against a man named Ulrich Kohl, a former Stasi agent out for revenge after the murder of his wife. Like Dai, Kohl had spent decades in prison, and he had used those years to plot his revenge against the ones who had betrayed him. Once free, he'd tracked down and murdered one man after another, until it led him to the discovery that his wife was alive—alive and happy and living a comfortable life in America while he rotted away in a German cell.

He'd counted that a betrayal as well, tracked down his wife and the daughter he'd never known, and terrorized both before pointing a weapon at them. You'll never know for sure if Kohl was planning to kill Anja, if he would have followed through with it if he'd had any ammo left, but that's the kind of risk that you would never take with an innocent life.

Iffaa's less than an hour away, and she's happy. Probably hasn't thought about Daichi in years; how often does your mind go back to a quirky boy you knew for a few months when you were a teen? Injecting him back into her life right now would be enough of a disruption, and that's without considering what Dai might want to do.

Would he consider it a betrayal, that she all but forgot him? Moved on without him? Didn't even try to track him down? Would he hate her for having a good life, while his efforts to save her had landed him in hell?

Prior to today, you might have granted him the benefit of the doubt. The Daichi you knew, however briefly, would leave the room during violent movie scenes; the thought of people getting hurt could make him physically ill. Even the fights he got into in prison—one small part of the bad behavior that lengthened a sixteen-year sentence to twenty-eight—could've been excused as situational; you can't even imagine what it's been like, living in that environment. And yet, Daichi the grown man has just assaulted a police officer en route to kidnapping a former associate. Tied you up in a basement, and just admitted to wanting a little "payback." It's no longer possible to think of him as innocent.

On top of that, Ken was never the creative type. If he'd been in charge of this operation, he'd probably have just beaten you up, or, if the bitterness had sunk that deep, gone ahead and killed you outright. No, this plan is all Daichi, and you're not sure how far off the deep end he's gone.

So you can't let them know about Iffaa—even if it costs you your life.

* * *

Daichi's eyes sparkle as he holds the drink out for you; he's smiling, friendly as ever, while he waits for your decision.

Three shots… not enough to get you drunk; you're hardly the lightweight you used to be. It's not an olive branch, but it's not likely to kill you… though it might well be laced with something unpleasant. But Ken took a sip himself, so either it's based on dosage, or he's already taken the antidote, or it's not a serious poison or disease. Unless it's a disease he already has; HIV rates in prison are five times the average rate of infection. But you hope that you would have picked up on that, seen some hint of it through your surveillance—additional doctor visits, treatments—and you saw nothing to make you suspect they were living on borrowed time.

A more worrisome thought is some sort of drug, maybe a truth serum. Something that could make you talk about Iffaa. Or the Machine, which would be worse—imagine what these two might do if they got it in their heads that you had access to a power like that! But if they were trying to get you to talk, what would be their immediate goal? What do you have that they might want? Money, obviously, but there are easier ways to get it from you. What else?

A slight headache is creeping up through your temples, a side effect of the cool air; you're on the edge of shivering, an unresolved tension as your muscles tighten up against the cold. The sweat is evaporating off your skin, slowly lowering your body temperature. If your hands were free, you'd be rubbing your arms by now. But you're not free; all you can do is try to force your body to relax and accept being colder than you'd like to be.

It's making it a little hard to think.

Might as well eliminate one possibility, even though it's implausible, even though the suggestion is likely to offend them and make you look like a fool. "I don't suppose you want money," you assert, searching Dai's face.

He doesn't lose the smile, but the corner of his mouth twitches. "What I want," he says, calmly, "is for you to drink this glass. We'll worry about the rest later."

Best get this charade over with. "I don't think I will, thank you."

"Well, it's not up to you," he says, tone still light, as if he's chatting with a friend. "Either you cooperate, and drink this, or I tip your head back and pour it down your throat."

The chance of that being merely vodka is next to nothing. Drinking it is a threat. Your main hope—your only hope, really, and how is that any different from normal?—would be for your friends to get here… either to get you medical aid, or to prevent you from saying things that these two mustn't know.

Regardless, you don't have a choice—not any more than when Root shoved a needle into your neck. So you take in a breath, lick your lips, and nod very lightly. "If that's how this is going to go."

Dai's smile broadens into a grin. "See?" he says brightly, to Ken. "Told you he'd be reasonable." Ken grunts, but Dai just moves to your side and holds the cup to your lips, tilting it carefully so as not to spill.

Before the liquor even hits your throat, your stomach turns over from the smell alone, but you fight back the urge to vomit and manage to swallow what he gives you. When it's over, he draws back, the smile far more genuine this time.

"There we go. Not so hard, hmm? Let's get this started."

There are two large fans, set against opposite walls; the brothers pull them out a ways and aim them at you, clicking them onto the lowest setting. The sudden air tips you over the edge, no longer able to keep from shivering. And it's probably about to get a lot worse.

With the pins in your neck, you can't turn your head to see what Ken is doing, but you feel something thin and hard slide up inside the cuff of your sleeve. A knife. He's working along the seam while Dai starts unbuttoning your vest, and then your shirt, pulling open layers as your sleeve falls off in Ken's hand. As Ken gets to work on the other side, you close your eyes, and soon enough that sleeve comes off as well, and you're sitting there with bare arms and just your undershirt and the rope between your chest and the chill around you.

Except you're feeling a little warmer, now, like a heat radiating out from your stomach, warming your skin. And your eyes fly open when you make the connection: That's the point of the vodka. Alcohol makes you feel warmer, but it dilates blood vessels, makes you lose heat faster. If they're trying to cool you down, then alcohol is a force multiplier.

Ken chuckles darkly, holding up what used to be your sleeves. "Guess you finally grew into the suit concept, huh? I remember your spats with Dai over the kind of clothes that suited our operation. 'Course, you've had a few decades to get used to them… we've been, well, wearing a different kind of suit until quite recently."

"I know. And I'm sorry," you add, knowing it's cold comfort to men who've had the better parts of their years stolen from them.

Dai sneers, the first negative expression you've seen on him tonight. "Well, too bad it took you thirty-odd years to regret what you did to us."

Teeth chattering, you shake your head. Not thirty years. Not even one. It's just that the damage had been done, and, back then, you didn't have the skill necessary to do anything about it. But you've never forgotten—never let yourself stop thinking about them. One of your earliest mistakes.

It's the road that your life could have taken, but for a little luck. Good luck for you, and bad luck for them. And if they see you as a traitor, well… they're not exactly wrong.

Wisps of fog roll out when Ken opens one of the freezers and roots around inside, but your attention gets drawn back to Daichi, who's pulling your hand down into a little bucket attached to the side of the chair, and tying it so that you can't pull it free. He calmly does the same to your other side, and already your breath is coming faster because you're starting to get a hint of what they might be planning to do to you.

"I want you to understand," Ken says evenly, as he hands Daichi a large blue gel pack, the kind used for sports injuries; he's holding one as well, covered in frost. "See, we've been thinking about this a long time. What we'd do if we ever ran into you again. And Dai got the idea that it ought to be… poetic. The kind of punishment you actually deserve."

"It's your clever fingers that got us all in trouble," Dai says, and they bend as one to secure the ice packs around your wrists—not tight, but firmly attached to the skin, the cold seeping through immediately.

Another trip to the freezers, and they're back to pour tiny cubes of ice down into the buckets, packing it all around your hands. Then Ken measures out some table salt and pours it into the bucket at his side before handing the salt and the measuring cup over to Dai.

At first, the sensation is merely a cold, muted, uncomfortable tingle, difficult to put up with, but something you think you could probably bear for a while; it's not like you're a stranger to discomfort, and the tricks used to get around it. All too soon, though, it's like your hands have been set in liquid fire, and you can't help but squirm, straining against the ropes and trying in vain to pull free.

By the time they bring back the next round, you're already panting. As they crouch by your feet, you gasp out, "Please—please—"

Daichi grins as they tie gel packs around your ankles and start filling the basin with ice, packing it in around your feet.

"You didn't have to run off, you know. I get that you were scared. And we were young. But if you had stuck to the plan—if you had been there when we needed you—we'd have all gotten out, together."

"So this is for running off," Ken adds as he pours the salt on, and you draw in shuddering breaths as your feet start to cramp up.

"We thought about, like, fire, or acid, or maybe just cutting them off." Daichi gets in close, staring into your eyes with greater intensity than you've ever seen from him before. "But we decided on cold because, hey, takes a pretty cold heart to leave your partners in prison for twenty-eight years, and just move on with your life."

He makes a moue. "It's been… interesting," he muses, "seeing what you've been up to in our absence. You know, you never told us that you were already in MIT. Guess that's one more sign that you didn't trust us, huh? And then you ended up working for IFT, of all places…"

"Nice cover, by the way." Ken's holding a fresh ice pack; you don't want to guess where the next one's going. But he doesn't put it on right away, just stands there, watching you shake uncontrollably. "Bet they never figured out that some low-level engineer was actually robbing their company blind—from the inside." He walks around behind you, and you suck in a breath as he wraps the ice pack around the back of your neck. A moment later he's taping it down with thick pieces of duct tape, all along the shoulders.

"So it looks like you've been doing well for yourself," Dai says. "Bit of a limp, sure, we noticed that much. But you don't get suits like this"—he tugs at the lapels, and carefully tucks the ice pack in under your collar—"without a hefty pocketbook."

At this point, you'd offer them every dime you had to get out of this, to stop the panic, the pain—but you've already crossed that motivation off the list. Money isn't what they're after.

"Please," you gasp out again. "I can't— I c-can't—"

Daichi's smile twists; mercy isn't in his repertoire, not like it used to be. "Do you know what I thought, the first night I spent in prison? _I can't take this_. Every morning, every night, for weeks: _I can't take this_. Can't do it. Can't survive it. Sixteen years, I thought that was a long time; I'd be over thirty when I got out. And I thought, _I'm going to be dead before it's over_." He bites his lip, brows furrowing. "Wasn't even a year in before I was thinking of suicide. Have you ever felt that way, Harold? Ever felt like your life had gotten so bad that you can't see any way out but down? Even been so scared of what comes next that you'd rather take the option of _nothing at all?_ "

This close, you can see that the brightness of his eyes isn't pleasure; it's something a little more manic than that. And his lips are trembling, ever so slightly. "But I'm here," he breathes. "Despite all of that, I'm alive. So, no. You _can_ take it. Because you don't have a choice."

Ken's moved over to lean against the wall, near one of the fans. When Daichi stops speaking, Ken turns the fan up to high.

"We've been watching you for a while now," Ken adds, returning. "Getting buddy-buddy with the cops, that's interesting. Guess you've come a long way. Can't be a criminal forever, right? Except no one seems to _know_ that you're a criminal. Because you never got caught… until now. Must be nice to have people think so well of you." He strides over and turns up the other fan as well.

You're starting to lose track of what they're saying, though, caught up in muscle spasms and the jerky breaths that you can't control anymore.

"Would've been nice if we had had the same chance," Daichi says over the roar. "But, y'know, mistakes were made. Can't take it back." Grinning down at you, he taps your cheek. "And, I figure, since you got the time and freedom that we didn't get to enjoy, well, maybe we could take away _your_ life, the way you took away ours. Not death. Just the kind of life where death might seem a preferable alternative."

You're shaking now, body temperature plummeting, but your attention is entirely on your hands and feet, the searing pain of your tissues freezing, burning, dying. And it only gets worse as Ken starts filling up the buckets with super-chilled vodka, the smell of it strong enough to set you gagging. It's colder than water could ever get and still be liquid, and it's drawing the heat out of your hands faster than your body can compensate.

"Not gonna run away from this one," Ken says as you writhe in the chair, trying to curl up against the ropes, unable to free a single limb.

And your feet are almost too numb to feel….


	3. Rescue?

_**Content Warnings:** The cold is really starting to do a number on Finch, both physically and mentally._

* * *

By now, you've completely lost track of time, too focused on the sensations of your body as it tries to stave off death. The shivering has gotten worse, but you've gone past the fire, your feet and hands both numb now, dead weight. A relief, of sorts, though your back keeps sending shooting pains up the spine, a reminder of your futile efforts to get free. You're not panting anymore; your breaths have slowed down, little jerks of your lungs, as if your body is starting to forget that you need oxygen, or is fighting not to fall asleep.

Watching you, Ken and Daichi are silent, sober, no longer taking delight in the fruition of their plans. But they're not releasing you, either. The cold must be getting to them: Dai's shaking a little, and he pushes into Ken's side; Ken wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close.

You didn't pay attention to it before, but neither one of them is dressed for the cold. When they confronted you on the street, they had nice coats on, but now they're in paper-thin tank tops and shorts that look completely out of place for the season. Given their preparations, this is clearly deliberate: They're exposing themselves to the same cold air that you're being subjected to. Not the rest of it, but at least the air.

Maybe under normal circumstances, you could have worked it out, at least some possibilities, why they might choose not to protect themselves from their chosen form of torture. But you're starting to feel like passing out, and it's so hard to think. You can't imagine what's going on in their heads.

* * *

There were… things that you've always wanted to say to them. Make apologies for the stupidity and cowardice of a teenage you. Explain that you never forgot them, that you wanted to help them, but couldn't find a way to do so while they were behind bars. Point out that once they got free, you did your best to make their lives easier—but that would seem like bragging, and it's far too little, too late.

But Iffaa isn't the only one you've kept an eye on.

Once the internet made it possible to pull in data without risking your anonymity, you started keeping tabs on the Okamotos as they served their time. Watched as Ken kicked a sentence of twenty-three years up to nearly thirty with a string of altercations. Watched, more concerned, as Daichi's sentence elongated; he'd gotten off easy in the sentencing, because he was younger and the court (not realizing that he was the motivating force behind the scam) was more lenient on him, but various counts of bad behavior added on a dozen years so that, in the end, they got out within two months of each other.

For the past four years, you've watched them move around the country, trying to reclaim some kind of life, with their felony records blocking them at every turn. Out of a sense of obligation, you've tried to make it easier on them: cleared away a few unnecessary hurdles, doctored their targeted advertising to point them at felon-friendly housing and job opportunities, even arranged for unexpected windfalls (including a spoof contest that "won" them a Jaguar—Ken always _did_ like fancy cars).

They were able to buy a house on Staten Island because of the money you shifted into their hands, without them ever knowing where it came from. You didn't think much of it at the time; they'd been enamored of the Big Apple before, and the move didn't seem out of place. Now, of course, it seems obvious that they somehow managed to track you down—even though you've taken pains to erase any paper trail tying you to Harold Hornbill, and it's practically impossible to imagine them identifying you by sight—so that explains the move and the unobtrusive little car.

You'd wondered about the car. You should have built a tracker into your phone, like with Grace, but you'd had other things on your mind at the time.

That inattention is going to cost you.

* * *

Your head is starting to nod, and it's hard to keep your eyes open. You're feeling… a little warm, surprisingly, and muzzy, like the aftereffect of good mulled wine. It can't be just the vodka; that isn't—it's not—

Why is it… it's so hard to put thoughts together. It's… there's a danger here, but you…

 _Hypothermia_.

When Reese first joined you, when you realized that he had practically no sense of self-preservation, you started taking that into account in your preparations. The first aid classes you attend are the most comprehensive you can find, and you supplement them with online training and video tutorials in the quiet hours between cases. Since you can't rely on paramedics or hospital trips, it's up to you to be the first line of defense, a way to reduce the level of lasting damage.

With Shaw on the team, that's less of a concern now, but you're still the backup, and able to handle many ailments before she can get back to base.

You've been hurt a few times yourself, but that's been a few scrapes and cuts and a burn or two. This is the first time you can recall having to hunt through your medical knowledge to deal with a more serious condition. Of all the times you've pictured eventualities—because anticipation is the first step in being prepared—it's always been someone else. Reese getting knocked into a wintery river, or being shot up and thrown into a snowbank (potentially better than without the snow, as the cold could make him bleed less). Shaw refusing to wear gloves and getting too busy to realize that the wind chill was harming her skin.

But you've memorized the charts. The violent shivering, that's Stage 2. One step closer to irreversible damage. Numbness means… there's a word for it, _vaso_ … _something_ , the veins tightened, closed off. Keeping heat near the core, even if it means sacrificing fingers and toes, or worse.

You don't want to think about losing your fingers. It's a terror almost as bad as losing your mind.

What could you possibly say that could stop this? They don't care about money, or information, so there's nothing you can use to negotiate. Threaten them? These men have lived through thirty years in Lucasville, survived an eleven-day riot that killed nearly a dozen men. Everything you can think to say would be laughable in the face of that.

And how plausible is it, really, to claim that you've got a partner who would raze a city to find you, or an all-seeing surveillance system that can track them down wherever they try to hide? Ken always despised the types of villains who couldn't accept their fate with dignity, who'd say anything, try any trick just to escape. That's what it would sound like, bringing up Reese right now.

When Reese gets here, he's going to kill them. You don't even know that you could stop him.

They don't deserve to die. For all the fear and pain you've gone through tonight, you can't wish that on them. They would never have gotten to this point if not for you. They were forced to adapt… to become cruel. Who knows what they might have done with their lives if not for that one mistake? A mistake with a noble purpose, too, however misguided the reasoning might have been.

They're just like Reese. Reese got forced into the military after some bad decisions as a teen, but he quickly adjusted to being in the service, and tried to do something noble with his work. And then he got twisted; that wasn't his choice. Given the chance, he became everything you could have hoped from him, and more; you can't blame him for what he was back when he met you.

And you can't blame these two, either. As a teen, you knew them at the level of a shallow friendship, shared pizza and video games, bad movies and idle daydreams; you never even told them your real name. But the history between you has grown while you've been apart. It's impossible to watch so carefully over someone's life without coming, in some way, to care what happens to them. You want them to live on, and to have _good_ lives—to prosper, now that they're finally free.

Except… they're not free. They're stuck on revenge, stuck in the past, in regret over wasted time. Your heart goes out to them; you want them to have… more. You want them to get past their hang-ups, to find a new focus in a future worth having. To actually _live_.

That's the thought that loosens your tongue again. If you can't get them to stop, then they are going to _die_. Somehow, you need to convince them to stand down.

At this point, there's nothing you can do but beg. "P-p-please," you stammer out, voice slurry and articulation all but absent. "God… don't d-do this. _Please_."

They stand there, unmoved and unmoving, Daichi still pressed tight against his brother's side. Except… where Ken looks like he's never had a second thought in his life, Daichi looks… stricken. Is that your blurry vision, or are there tears rolling down his face?

" _NYPD! Nobody move!_ "

For one horrifying moment, you think that it's Reese behind you, that he's about to storm down the stairs and shoot them both in the head, the way he would surely have dealt with Root if their first confrontation hadn't been in such a public place. You open your mouth to call out to him, to avert this evil: _Don't hurt them. Don't hurt them._

But then your brain catches up to the data and registers a woman's voice: Shaw. Relief floods through you slowly, like every other sensation, slow and sluggish. But she's pretending to be a cop, which means—probably—that she's not going to start shooting unless these guys prove to be a greater threat.

Ken and Dai have separated, Dai's hands up while Ken's are squeezed into fists at his sides. Dai is shaking, and his face is screwed up with some mix of emotions you can't parse right now… but he's surrendering.

If Shaw is here, where's Fusco? Is he nearby? Is he even all right? Did she drop him off at the hospital before tracking you down?

How long has it even been? The windows are blacked out, so you can't even tell if it's night or day. A moment ago, it felt like an eternity, but…

You stiffen suddenly at a lance of pain up your back, and let out a shaky groan that you didn't mean to voice. That's one mercy that you give your teammates, daily: They almost never know just how badly you're hurting. If you can't stop the pain, at least you can keep it from spreading, from making them feel bad about conditions they can't remedy.

Most of the pain is gone now, anyway. It's just your lower back, and your neck, two spots of chronic pain that you should have mastered by now. There's no need to distract Shaw with—

"Brace yourself, Harold," comes her voice by your ear, and her hand grabs the chair, making you stiffen again when she accidentally presses the ice pack further into your neck. And then, in a sudden rush of terror, you're tilting backward, tipping over, and only Shaw's careful strength keeps you from actually falling. Your feet lift out of the basin, out of the vodka bath and into the air. The ice buckets tilt, but catch against something, as though they're tied in place, and then the ice is spilling out across the floor and the frigid vodka's running up the underside of your arms.

All of that, you felt as changes of pressure in your wrists and ankles… but not in your feet or hands. They're beyond numb; they're completely devoid of sensation, as though they're no longer actually there.

Between the adrenaline rush and the chill of the vodka soaking into your shirt, you're shaking even worse, taking in little trembling breaths as though your lungs have seized up too much to suck in air. You can't help letting out another moan as your calf spasms a bit before going still.

"Join the party," Shaw says. "We've got guests." And you have to wonder if you're hallucinating, because those words don't make sense to you. Only maybe she's calling in Reese? You want to protest, but it's too hard to make your mouth form words right now.

"All right, you two. Which one's Ken?"

It startles you; how did she find out their names? Was she listening in? But you dropped your phone when they grabbed you. Reese has planted trackers before, but did he go so far as to hide a bug? Or did Shaw hide one? Where? You don't have your glasses, and there's nothing else that's the same in every outfit…

"Okay, _Ken_ , go unplug that fan for me. Nothing else."

There's a pause, and then Daichi says, like he's too tired to even cry, "Ken, _please_. Let's just—I want this to be over with."

It's such a contrast to his attitude while setting this up that, at first, you have to consider whether he's putting on an act—getting Shaw to let down her guard, maybe. Or, thinking that they're about to go back to prison, trying to act reasonable enough to get lower sentences. But you never had to dig to figure out Daichi's emotions; they were always front and center, whether he wanted them to be or not. So that doesn't seem to be what's going on.

It's resignation of some sort. Regret? For what they just did to you? What they _almost_ did? Your head's too muddled to piece it together.

"Daichi… other one. Now." The rushing, pounding sound in your ears is getting worse, blocking out sound. This position—tied into a chair tipped over, blood rushing to your head while the ropes dig into your arms—is a far cry from comfortable, but it's another thing you have to bear for a while; your friends are neither callous nor oblivious, so they'll help you as soon as they can. Once they deal with the Okamotos, get rid of the threat. At least they've calmed things down without needing to shoot anyone; you doubt that Reese could've been that restrained.

Shaw says something else, but the words are too hard to make out. And then again— _die, kill, see_ —and suddenly you're not so sure that she's going to be more lenient than Reese would be.

"D-don't," you croak out. "Don't—"

"Shhh," she says. There's no comfort in her voice, but then, there never is from Shaw; it's neither a measure of her concern nor of her competence in helping people. Her fingers find your neck, then hesitate and feel around the ice pack until suddenly she's ripping off the duct tape, pulling another gasp from you. A little bit of jostling makes your neck scream, but then the ice pack is tugged loose and her fingers are checking your pulse.

" _Don't_ —" you try again.

She says something about taking your pulse, getting you out of here, but that's not what you're concerned with right now. Of course your team will help you; that was never in question. It's what they might do to your _first_ team that's worrying you.

Gathering yourself, you manage to push words out through stiff and shaking lips, a sluggish tongue; they're quite possibly the least articulate you've ever been when you weren't exceedingly drunk. "D-don't _hurt_ them." Is that enough? Does she understand? "Don't— it's m-my fault, it's all my f-f-fault."

The effort of just that much exhausts you, makes you want to cough, though you don't have the strength for it anymore. Everything around you is spinning; closing your eyes makes it worse, so you stare upwards, unfocused, trying to shake it off.

The footfalls on the stairs again make you think of Reese, before you recognize the heavyset gait of Detective Fusco, just before he comes into view, towering above you and doing little to alleviate the dizziness. He looks down at you, eyes widening in horror, before he descends a little further and glances across the room, leveling his gun with a frown.

Fusco's not the type to shoot anyone without good cause; his gun doesn't worry you like it does with the type of agents who don't have to explicitly justify each bullet with paperwork in triplicate. So Shaw's next words, firm enough to make it through the fuzz—"Either of them move, shoot 'em"—don't alarm you, so much as make you want to chuckle at the bravado. Typical Shaw.

When she kneels by you, you tense up in anticipation of being moved—but no, she's just working her way through the knots. It's still painful, the change in pressure and support as your body slowly comes free, but it's the kind of discomfort that grounds you, drives back the dizziness just a little. Just _enough_.

Fusco glances your way and bites off a gasp, his eyes wide, before he pulls his focus back to the Okamotos. His gun doesn't waver. He looks angry.

Shaw gets the ice packs off your numb ankles, and starts to work one off your wrist; the pressure is enough to make you moan, grimacing despite yourself.

… _okay_? Fusco asks, not looking down this time.

Pulling off the last ice pack, Shaw replies, but you only make out the word _bite_. She pulls loose the rope she's gotten off you, most of it, and gathers it up, loosely coiled, and says something else at Fusco, who lets her nab the handcuffs from his belt before she's out of your field of view again.

It's strange how easy it is for her to convince the Okamotos to give up. Or maybe they'd already decided that— _the jig is up, let's not make it any harder on ourselves_ —so it didn't even matter what Shaw did. But soon enough Shaw's back, tucking something into the back of her pants before she crouches at your side, motioning to Fusco to join her.

"No weight on his feet," Shaw says, all business medic now. Something about _bad_ , about _damage_. You try not to think about those words applying to you.

Fusco asks about an ambulance, and you don't even have to shoot him down; Shaw does it for you, though you can't make out specifically what she says. Then _upstairs_ , and you don't realize quite what she means until they're grabbing you by the knees and looping arms around your chest, under your armpits.

Just being lifted brings on another wave of dizziness, and you want to protest this kind of treatment—it's been years since you let yourself get touched this closely by another human being, someone not trying to capture you—but you can feel Fusco's warmth through your shirt, and that's an odd sort of comfort to balance out all the pain. And you realize that it wouldn't matter anyway; there's no way you can walk at this point.

Because you're still shaking, and your hands—not your fingers, just your hands—are starting to burn again, and yet your feet are as numb as they were in the ice bath. Dead weight.

As they heft you upstairs, you try not to wonder if you're ever going to walk again.


	4. Surrender

_**Content Warning:** One of the side effects of hypothermia is mental confusion; that's why Finch is mostly out of it, and struggling against what's happening to him. Some of this scene might come across like rape imagery; as far as plot, you could skip this chapter without too much loss._

* * *

You're in a cocoon of discomfort and dizzying motion, rocking back and forth as you're pulled and compressed and pulled apart again, your moans going unanswered.

The motion stops for a moment, and then you're falling, slowly, until finally there's a solid floor beneath you again, soft and a little warm.

What's going on? What are they doing to you? Why do you feel like this?

Then there's a knife working in under your clothes again, and you stiffen, terror washing through you, every sense keyed in to that point of pressure slicing your clothes off, slicing you open. You thought that Ken was done with you, that they'd done enough just taking off your sleeves, but, now, they're going further; they're taking everything.

Including your trousers. They're taking your trousers off. They're—

You flail, trying to make it stop, trying to get away; your hands strike something or someone, _hard_ , and, for a second, you freeze, sure that Ken's going to strike you back out of reflex. When he doesn't, you try to roll over, scrabbling at the floor until one of them grabs your hands, both hands, stopping you cold.

"No," you try to cry out, but it's hard to make your lungs work right. "No—stop—don't—"

While Daichi's got your hands, Ken's pulling your trousers the rest of the way off, and all your struggling can't seem to stop it. The floor is soft against your bare skin. What are they planning? You writhe, trying to get loose of the arms around you, yank yourself free of the iron grip around your wrists, but it's useless. They've got you at their mercy; they're going to take their payback, do whatever they want to you, and there's no way for you to defend yourself against it.

But when Daichi's hands glide over your scars—a piece of you so personal that you haven't even shown John, in all this time—you can't help but break out into sobs. Not just for yourself, but because Daichi went into prison without any scars of body or mind, and by now he's surely got both. Because of _you_. Because you got scared and left them to get caught. So whatever happens to you here, you can't even imagine that you don't deserve it all.

As Daichi embraces you again from behind, you shudder and go still, waiting for whatever they have in store for you.


	5. Sense Dream

You float in warmth, rocking gently, like you're in a shallow lake in the summer, back when you didn't mind strangers looking at your skin. It's calm, and peaceful, and quiet.

You can't feel your hands, at first. Like they're bundled in mittens, or gauze. Like the fingers aren't working. But they're starting to sting a little, like a sunburn, or being out in the hail, tiny spikes of pain across the skin.

But there's no feeling at all from your feet, and you don't feel like worrying about that right now. In here, maybe you don't even have any feet. It's a dream, right?

You've never had a dream without visual imagery. This is all… sensory, different types of touch. Something heavy across your chest.

It's hard to focus, though.

Something moves, and then there's a spot of heat blossoming across your chest, drawing you into its warmth. It's a different kind of weight, and hard, but it's easier to just lie here and breathe, to let it happen and not fight it.

There's sounds, though. At first they're distant and indistinct, but they're starting to sound more like words, more like something you should pay attention to. Like being roused from sleep.

You're not sure where you'd rather be right now.


	6. Reorienting

_**Content Warnings:** The pain of warming up after hypothermia and frostbite. Disorientation; mild panic. Shaw's still warming him up skin-to-skin._

* * *

You surface to Shaw asking if you'd like some juice. For a moment, you struggle against the weight on your chest, but at the calm reassurance in her voice—you can't quite make out the words—you realize that there's no emergency, and no reason to fight off the exhaustion that's sapping away what little energy you have left.

But relaxing back twinges your neck, and that calls attention to other feelings in your body. Your feet feel heavy and cold, and tingly, like they've been dipped in hot sauce. Your neck and back ache, and even little shifts send jolts like electric shocks up your spine. You feel bruised all over, and your hands… you can't even feel your fingers.

Shaw says something, right next to your ear, and you realize that the thing you're leaning against is warm and solid and a little sweaty—another human body, wrapped around yours.

There's heavy blankets around the both of you, and something hard and warm pressed against your chest. You try to reach for it, but encounter Shaw's hands, instead, which only drives home that your own are… stiff, and low on sensation, except for the tingling sensation like in your feet.

"Miss Shaw?" you ask, but it's hard to work your tongue. "Why… ah…"

"Why are we on the couch practically naked together?" She shifts a little, behind you. "First aid, Harold. Gotta get your core temperature up."

Core temperature. You don't… _feel_ cold. Just your feet. Were you… "My… my hands aren't moving right."

"That's probably temporary," she says, seemingly unconcerned. "Do you feel cold?"

"Not…" Not except for your feet. "Ah… perhaps a little."

"You don't seem to be shivering quite so much. That's progress."

It's suddenly too much effort to keep your head up, and, without even meaning to, you let it drop back against Shaw's shoulder. Blinking, you take in the unfamiliar room. But when you ask about it, Shaw passes it off as the house of some "friends."

You wouldn't be surprised if these friends were minor criminals or drug dealers that she'd just scared into compliance. Maybe locked up in the bathroom so you've got a safe place to recover.

"We'll get to that later," she's saying. "You tired?"

Giving yourself a moment to breathe, you take inventory. 'Tired' would be an understatement. And when you nod, it sends a fresh jolt of pain up your neck. You want to be back at one of your safe houses, with pillows specifically designed to support your neck the right way, and the chance to consider taking some painkillers and muscle relaxants without being afraid of the consequences. "I could certainly… benefit from a good night's sleep. How close are we to the library?"

Shaw still doesn't know where your safe houses are—most of them. Perhaps someday she'll have earned your trust enough to know more.

"We gotta get you warmed up first," Shaw says, and then calls attention back to your feet.

You've been trying not to think about them, because feet shouldn't feel like this, part dead flesh and part live wire. What happened to them? It feels like something's seriously wrong.

But, as you're fighting back the panic, Shaw's hand squeezes your shoulder. "Harold," she says, "you got hurt. I need to know how badly. How do your feet feel?"

She's right—she's the medic, the one who could actually help you if this is truly serious. But, for a moment, you struggle for words.

When you finally put together something that conveys the feeling with any adequacy—"Like two giant nests of fire ants"—she says a word that sends a chill down your spine.

"Frostbite."

* * *

When she asks you to sit up, you try, but your body's not quite up to the task of staying upright. It's not like being drunk so much as your muscles just being too exhausted to operate. "I'm sorry," you murmur, "to have… inconvenienced you this way."

"Hey, I'm the medic," Shaw says with a grim sort of grin. "Kinda my job."

After she gets out from behind you, she helps reposition you so that you're supported by the sofa; she evidently wants to keep you from putting any pressure on your hands. "It'll be a while before we can figure out if there's any permanent damage," she says, covering your hands with warm towels. And then she starts talking about the treatment. It's a little disorienting, trying to wrap your head around the steps to treat a condition when you don't even recall how you got it.

Pain, she says, is a good thing. "Means that you've still got nerves down there."

As if you needed more pain in your life. At least this one's temporary… you hope. She's being a bit cagey about the details.

While bundling up your feet, she asks you to wiggle your toes, which turns out to be both difficult and agonizing, the stiff muscles feeling a bit like there are shards of glass inside them. But Shaw seems relieved by the fact that you can move them at all.

Fusco hands her a bag of pills—painkillers, apparently—and she does her due diligence looking up the details and asking you a few questions to make sure she doesn't cause any adverse effects. It's not easy for you to bring yourself to answer her honestly, even though you know it's in the best interest of not just you but the entire team; you're hardly this open with doctors, but then, you have your reasons for secrecy, as well as not trusting their judgment.

You really ought to get a full medical workup to Shaw. The idea of sharing that much with her—with _anyone_ —is _deeply_ uncomfortable, but you do need to be kept in working order if you're going to keep working the cases, and she's the doctor that you can trust the most to have your best interests in mind.

When she brings you the pills, you try to free your hands and reach for them, but she holds your arms down, gently but firmly, and gives them a little squeeze. "Let's not put extra stress on your hands," she says, "until we're sure they're okay."

The helplessness grates at you, but you can see the sense in it. You open your mouth. Surprisingly, she doesn't give you the pills at first—just a sip of juice. Then she observes you while you swallow, before she finally nods and helps you take the pills.

She puts the juice on the coffee table, and then steps away from the sofa—enough that you can see, for the first time, that she's down to bra and underwear. And starting to get dressed, right there in your sight.

Thankfully, Fusco takes that moment to crouch in front of you and ask if you're feeling better. He calls you 'Professor,' an endearment that you've heard a couple times from him, and it's never been a bad thing… but you've never heard it spoken with this much concern on your behalf.

Trying to keep your eyes focused on his face, instead of the reverse strip tease in the background, you consider. "I am feeling… underdressed, to begin with." It's not that you don't understand why, but having a legitimate reason to have woken up mostly nude in a stranger's living room doesn't make it any less awkward. "I shall be infinitely more comfortable once I am back in my own suit," you conclude.

Fusco's grinning in that endearing way of his, the way that mostly comes out when he talks about people he likes—Carter, or Lee, or, very rarely, a moment of admiration for Reese. "Guess you're back, then," he says, but then his eyes drop, and he rubs the back of his head. "Uh… sorry 'bout the suit."

You stare at him. "…What?"

From his expression and fumbling attempts to justify it, it's like he thinks that destroying your suit was the Unpardonable Sin. "When we got here, they'd already cut the sleeves off, and then—"

There's a rushing sound in your head again, a sudden reminder of why you're here, why you're being treated for hypothermia, for frostbite—for damage from extreme cold. _Dear God_. "They're—are they all right? Did they get hurt?" _Is Reese here already?_ "He—he didn't kill them, did he?" _Are they still in the basement? Is Reese torturing them?_ "Mr. Reese—he's going to—you have to stop him."

But as you struggle to get out of the blankets, you find Shaw's arm, strong and unyielding, across your chest.

"We can _call_ Reese," she says. "What do we need to tell him?"

"He's not here?" _Where is he? How long has it been? Is this even the right house?_

"He's not even back from Long Island yet," Fusco responds. "And he don't know about any of this. Yet." A pause. "Unless _she's_ telling him."

Shaw's typing on a phone. _No. Please._

"Please don't tell him," you beg, trying to tamp down the panic. If he doesn't already know what happened—"I don't want him to know."

"Gonna be hard to hide frostbite," Shaw says archly. "Why don't you want him to know?"

You struggle to convey some fraction of the thoughts, the fears, that are whirring through your head right now. "If he has to know what happened to me," you conclude, "please find some way to keep the Okamotos out of this."

"After what they did to you?" The outrage from Fusco is palpable—but he also looks… conflicted. Like he wants to be all black-and-white about this, and knows it can't be.

A memory of the pain comes back, the panic as the ice truly started to burn. The way your body couldn't help but try to escape it. The fear of your friends not reaching you in time.

But it doesn't matter. Even Shaw explaining that you could have permanent damage, it doesn't matter. "Those men were my friends once," you assert, sure of your footing. "I do not wish to see them harmed. Or jailed," you add, knowing that sending them back to prison would be handing them a worse fate than just shooting them in the head.

They argue with you, briefly, and seem even more alarmed when you say you'd like to talk with the men who hurt you. But Shaw deflects the issue into the more immediate need for first aid.

You acquiesce, knowing that your friends will certainly be less inclined to honor your wishes if in entails serious injury. But you're firm in your resolve, now. You're going to face your old friends on equal footing, this time, and you're going to discuss the future they want to have.


	7. Discussion

_**Content Warning:** Getting your circulation back after frostbite/hypothermia is painful. Discussion of suicide, drug abuse, vengeance, prison life, rehab, canon-typical violence (nothing onscreen)._

* * *

Taking that first dip into the water was excruciating (though less humiliating than being carried upstairs), but you tried to cling to the knowledge that pain, at this point, was better than the alternative. With Shaw's arm supporting your neck, there was nothing much to do but float there, dealing with the tingling, burning agony as circulation slowly returned to parts that had been cold for far too long.

Trying to distract yourself from the pain, you converse with Shaw—letting her know, in case she doesn't, how much you value her as a teammate.

It strikes you, then, that you owe her some level of explanation for why the Okamotos' welfare matters so much to you. Not least because it might affect how readily she assists in your efforts to redeem them.

"Miss Shaw," you murmur, "I know that you don't understand"—a wave of pain strikes you hard, and you breathe through it—"why I care about the welfare of the men who captured me."

"They used to be your friends," she says, after a moment. "I can understand that much."

You confirm it, but that's really not enough. "When you know someone, at a key point in your life… when they help form the person you become… that can be a… a tie between you, a bond that can last for decades."

When you compare that to the bond between you and Reese, Fusco scoffs. "Can't imagine Reese coming after you with the intent of chopping off your fingers."

 _No_ , you think, _only chopping off your hands at the wrist_. Which is what he did when he fled the country after Carter's death, leaving your operation in turmoil, down by two men, and, despite your best efforts, easy prey for Vigilance. If Reese hadn't come back in time… it could have all ended right there.

Because you need him. You can't do this alone anymore.

* * *

Shaw trades places with Fusco, and warms up the water a little, then starts looking over your feet. As much as it hurts to let them thaw, it hurts worse to try to move them; the 'shards of glass' are not as pronounced, but they're still there, buried deep within the muscles.

"You haven't asked me," you gasp, "what I did to make them hate me so."

Fusco huffs. "If it's the kind of thing that actually merits frostbite as payback, I'm not sure I wanna know."

Does he think your mistakes couldn't possibly be on that grand a scale?

"You said it was 'all your fault,'" Shaw muses. "So, whatever it was, you still blame yourself."

"I do," you say, and fall silent, studying the ceiling tile as you debate how much more of this you want to share.

Shaw stays silent too, although she startles you by taking up one of your hands to examine the skin. "Bright red's a good sign," she says, and asks you how it feels. Squeezing her hand is more alarming than painful: Your muscles feel exhausted, as if you've over-exercised your grip today.

You remember that kind of exhaustion, during physical therapy after surgery. After the bombing. Wasted muscle trying to accomplish what could be expected from the muscles you'd had before. Training them to compensate. Learning how to limp along with part of your lower back just… missing, even if it didn't look like that on the outside.

If you were the praying sort, you'd be praying recovery for your hands. Your feet don't even matter so much, but your hands…

"Did they use anything other than ice and vodka?" Shaw asks, evidently wondering about chemical burns or something.

When you admit to the salt, you let out a yelp—because Fusco's hand had tightened on your neck reflexively, en route to making a fist. After the apologies, he describes how kids have been using this kind of pain as a dare.

You remember the pain, when they'd first poured the salt on, when the temperature had suddenly dipped low. You wonder who first started the dare, and what kind of monster they must have been to want other people to hurt like that, all for a laugh.

"If I had any say over this," Fusco avows, "those guys would not be seeing the light of day for a long, long time."

You're glad that it's not his decision to make. Because the Okamotos have already spent more than half their lives in prison, and you're not about to let them go back.

* * *

Eventually, through a combination of reason, orders, and pleading, you get Fusco and Shaw to agree to bring Ken and Daichi to you. They get you set up on the sofa again—the last time you're going to let them carry you anywhere, but Shaw still doesn't want weight on your feet for another couple of hours maybe—and then lock the doors (a precaution Shaw insists on) and set up two chairs on the far side of the living room. Then they work together to untie Daichi and bring him upstairs, handcuff him to one of the chairs. Fusco stays to watch him (they refuse to let you be alone with either of the men) while Shaw brings Ken up to join you.

And then, finally, you're sitting there, bundled up in warm towels again, looking at the men who could have been your lifelong friends… if you hadn't screwed that up within a few months of getting to know them.

There's nothing but tense silence for a while, as you observe each other. Ken's gaze doesn't waver much; he doesn't seem ashamed of his behavior, or, if he is, he's hiding it well. Daichi, though, keeps darting his eyes at you, unable to look very long but equally unable to look away. His brow is furrowed, his face deeply unhappy, and you get the feeling that if his hands weren't tied behind his back, he'd be hugging himself.

You're surprised that you didn't notice it before, but Ken's got a thin ligature mark around his neck—and you've seen that kind of scar before, on a case Reese barely got to in time. Strangulation. _Dear god_. Did he get attacked? Did he… try to kill himself? The scar looks old, like a decade or more, but you don't know enough about forensics to figure out anything more conclusive. And there was never anything in his file about it, at least the files that you were able to get your hands on.

If Daichi's got scars, they're not visible above his collarbone, or on his bare legs and arms. You don't doubt that he's got some, though—and, of course, both are stuck with emotional scars as well, the kind that may never heal.

Because of you.

Given that, it's hard to find any words you could say to them right now. So the silence stretches on.

* * *

Before too long, Ken raises an eyebrow. "I'm getting the impression that you aren't actually cops."

"Well, _one_ of us is a cop," Shaw counters.

Fusco doesn't add anything to that, quite possibly because holding the guys in this fashion is breaking enough laws to destroy any case you might have against them, and he _probably_ doesn't want them to be aware of that.

Running a quick cost/benefit analysis, you decide that honesty is, for once, more useful than deceit. "We operate outside the bounds of the law. Miss Shaw here, and I, along with our associates. The good detective is an ally, who assists us with a variety of tasks. As a matter of fact, we were just finishing up a case when you grabbed me."

Ken breaks into laughter, his amusement nearly covering up the bitterness. "So much for the thought that we might someday outgrow it! Don't know why I'm surprised."

"You mean get out of crime?" you ask. "I did… for the most part. After I got my fortune started… well, it would be impossible for me to 'go straight,' not with my record. I suppose it could best be thought of this way: In order to stay free, I've had to maintain various identities for myself… but they all pay taxes. And contribute a significant amount to their pet charities."

"So why go back to that life? A fortune wasn't enough for you?"

Hesitating, you swallow the memory of Nathan's boozy smile after a good day's coding… of his lifeless face being covered up with a sheet. Finally, you respond, "I found something worth devoting my life to," and try to smile, finding the effort unbearably weak. "So now, we help people. Mostly those who are beyond the reach of… of a strictly _legal_ approach."

"Trying to tell us you're in some kind of Robin Hood setup?" Ken asks. " _Rob from the rich to give to the poor_ doesn't ring quite as true when Robin's decked out in fancy suits."

"The help we provide goes far beyond money, Ken. Earlier today, we stopped a murderer and saved the lives of four men that he had intended to kill. Last week, we caught wind of a chemical attack that could have left a young woman blind for life. In the past three years, we've intervened in well over a thousand cases, most of which are matters of life and death."

The brothers regard you; Ken looks thoughtful, a little suspicious but open to being persuaded, while Daichi is looking more miserable than ever.

As you're debating how to frame the next part of the conversation, Fusco suddenly blurts out, "All right, what's with the clothes?"

Nobody seems to know what to make of the question, but Fusco's not gonna let it go. "When I grabbed Sniffles, here, he's got gooseflesh and he's pale as skim milk. You're not doing any better… Ken," he finishes, having evidently failed to come up with a decent nickname to throw at him. "You set the whole thing up; was this some sort of bizarre penance ritual? Kill a guy, but catch a cold while doing so, so you're even?"

"We never intended to kill him," Ken says evenly.

"Right. Only make him _wish_ he were dead. Doesn't answer the question."

"I hardly think their choice of attire is the pertinent issue here," you say, frowning—but Ken's just taken in a deep breath.

"I told him there was no honor in shielding yourself from what your opponent suffers." Ken looks at his brother, then steadily meets your gaze. "I agreed to help him, on conditions. We had to stay in the same room. Experience… not the same cold, obviously, but we couldn't be warm while you were freezing. And we had to watch you go through it; we couldn't turn away."

Fusco swears and stomps off down the hall, but Shaw, at your side, just regards them thoughtfully. "So what's the point of all that? Some kind of honor code?"

"He was hoping I'd back down," Daichi murmurs. When Ken looks at him, startled, he scrunches down a bit, shoulders drawing in. "I knew what you were doing, Ken. I knew _why_ , I just— I wish we'd never found him."

"I don't blame you," you say, finding your voice at last. "All of this… I can understand how much you hated me. And I deserve that."

"You don't, really," Ken says with a sigh. "We were kids. You don't deserve our hate any more than we deserved the sentences we got." His mouth twists angrily. "Twenty-three years for trying to pull a scam over the phone. They just piled a bunch of charges on top of each other, just to make an example of us; _murderers_ don't even get that much."

"I know. I… I tried to get your sentences reduced somehow, but… I could never figure out a way to do it without getting caught myself."

"You—what?" blurts Daichi. "You tried to help us?"

"There wasn't anything I could do. Too many hard copies… nothing was online. And it took me a couple of decades to learn the trick of sneaking into places by pretending to be a janitor or tech support; I could never have done it back then."

"Why didn't you contact us?" Ken asks. "Let us know that you were at least _trying_?"

"Would you have believed me?" Swallowing, you look down. "I'd cut and run, right when you needed me. My cowardice left you both to get caught. I had all the money and you two took the fall for it. What would you have thought, getting a call or a letter to say that I couldn't really do anything to help you? Would that have made anything better for you?"

You take in a deep breath and sigh it out again. "I suppose it was another kind of cowardice, not reaching out to you. Not letting you know what was going on. I was afraid of how you might react, or whether you might try to turn me in as well. So I just… I vanished."

"And turned our money into a fortune, I see." Ken's smile is an oddly approving one. "Dai always thought you'd look good in a suit."

Then his smile fades away, and the room falls silent again.

"What happened?" you ask, finally. "Why this? How long have you been planning this for me?"

The emotions that cross Ken's face are hard to read, and it takes him a moment to compose himself, and lift his chin. "I'm the one who came up with it," he says.

"You're not," Daichi protests. "It was my idea."

"More specifically," Ken says, holding your gaze with something like cold fury in his eyes, "when Dai was in the infirmary, recovering from the first time he tried to _kill_ himself, I got the idea that we needed something long-term to hold onto. A goal for a future that he couldn't see right then. We started discussing it as soon as he was on his feet again."

"And I couldn't see any way forward but vengeance," Dai murmurs. "God, Harold, I… I was so angry at you. So fixated on that anger. I couldn't let it go." He swallows. "And it wasn't even what you did to us, it was the fallout, the consequences, and I knew it wasn't your fault that they sent us away for life, but… I needed someone I could focus on.

"Today, when we finally spotted you in the street, practically nobody around… I couldn't wait for a better time. Couldn't let it boil up inside me any longer; it was _killing_ me."

With nothing better to offer, you simply say, "I'm sorry," and watch as tears spill down his cheeks.

Ken still looks angry. "It was a painful hope, but it was the only one I could give him. And even with that hope to cling to, he still tried to kill himself five more times. Poison, hanging, hanging, starvation, and damn near suicide by fellow inmate, for which event he got an additional five years. And the first attempt was a self-inflicted stab wound to the gut, luckily missing vital organs through his own incompetence. If I were going to hold a grudge against you, Harold, it'd be for _that_." He sighs, that glittering edge of rage draining away. "But I don't. Never have."

"So, what," Fusco grouses, "he hold a gun to your head and make you help out down there? Sure looks like you were equal partners at this."

"Thank you, Detective," you say, the gentle reprimand making him roll his eyes. But at least he's back.

Thoughtfully, Ken regards Fusco. "I don't suppose you know much of loyalty, if you can't imagine sticking it out with a friend, even if you know they're doing the wrong thing."

After a moment, Fusco says, "Yeah. Yeah, I guess I know something about that." He drags another chair in from the kitchen and sits down on it backwards, his righteous outrage deflating a bit. Then he frowns. "That's why you don't have knives in the house. Or drugs."

"Well, I _thought_ that we didn't have drugs," Ken says, glancing at Dai. "He got out two months before I did, and by the time I managed to track him down, he was… kind of a mess. I was lucky to find a job pretty fast, but we didn't have enough extra to pay for rehab, so I just, well, researched it online and tried my best to run a drug-free home. And once he was clean, he… didn't try to hurt himself anymore, as far as I knew. But I wasn't going to chance it."

"I didn't take the pills," Dai says. "They were just… like building up a backup plan. In case I really needed it. Made it easier to do things day by day if I thought I always had an out."

"From pain pills?" Fusco asks.

Shaw gestures dismissively. "Overdose on acetaminophen, probably with alcohol. Acute liver failure, quick death. Not exactly pretty, though."

Daichi deflates, his lips trembling. "Yeah, well, I didn't want something that dragged on. I didn't even know if it would work, really. But the thought kinda helped." He glances over at Ken. "You can get rid of them now. I'll show you where I hid everything."

"That hardly matters if we're headed back to prison," Ken says, studying your face.

"I have no intention of sending you back there," you assert. "As I've said, I don't blame you for this."

"What's the plan, then? You've still got us tied up, here."

"Unfortunately, my associates aren't comfortable with my safety while you're loose. Part of this discussion is in the hopes of convincing them that the threat is over." Tilting your head, you meet his gaze. "So is that the case? Is the threat over with?"

"Are you okay?" Daichi asks suddenly. "Did we… how badly did we hurt you?" His face is pinched, his tone remorseful.

"It'll be a while before we know," Shaw replies. "What exactly were you hoping for?"

Ken laughs bitterly. "On paper, it was a way to steal your productive life, just like you stole ours. But when it came down to it… it was a way to get Dai to move on."

That one's understandable; Dai's never been the type to let things go, not unless something new comes along that he can fixate on with all the fervor of the last project. Sometimes it had been easiest just to let him do a stupid thing, just so it'd get out of his system. This plan was, you suppose, the culmination of that tendency.

Still, if that's what this was…

"How do you like the Jag?" you ask.

Ken pauses. Processes the question. Narrows his eyes at you. "You know, I always thought that contest was a little weird. Especially how it paid for the yearly taxes on top of the car itself."

"Have you been keeping tabs on us?" Dai asks, mouth agape.

"I've been trying to make your lives easier, in any way I can see to do so. All these years… you've suffered enough."

"Why the hell didn't you come to us earlier?" Ken grinds out.

"Well, for one, I wasn't sure that you'd be happy to hear from me; I judged it best if I could just stay out of your lives entirely. Of course, when you came to New York, that feat was a little harder to pull off… though I wasn't entirely sure that you were looking for me, much less actively tracking me down."

"You certainly hid your tracks well."

"I've had abundant reason to do so."

"But you sent me a Jag. That's not exactly staying unobtrusive."

"I doubt you would have figured it out, except in retrospect. But you always did talk of owning a wicked car someday. Custom painted." Your lips twitch and your eyebrows shoot up for a second as you recall just how detailed the description could get. "Of course, I couldn't get any more specific with the design without being too obvious, but I thought you'd like it nonetheless."

" _Like_ it? I'm terrified to drive the thing! You realize, I'd had barely two years' driving experience before I went into the system, and by now I've got, what, six? Do you even know how nerve-wracking that is, taking your perfect car out for a drive and being constantly aware that a moment's inattention could ruin it forever?"

"Well, if you ruin that one, I'll buy you a new one." The smile tugging at your lips is getting harder to resist.

"Wait," Daichi says. "You're rich enough to just give Jaguars away?"

Briefly, you hesitate, then decide that it's worth the risk. "I'm rich enough that I could buy you each one of those cars every day for a year, and that would still be less than my yearly income. And I can pay you back your 'investment' a hundred times over." You study their faces. "But I think I was right when I said that you don't want money. I have something of far greater value to both of you right now. If you're willing to trust me. I assure you that I'm far better at keeping my word these days than I was back then."

Ken sucks in a breath. "I'll be glad to hear you out. But being tied up like this is going to make it hard to shake your hand."

"Miss Shaw," you say, "do you think it's a reasonable assumption, at this point, that the danger has passed?"

She looks thoughtful, and then pulls out a knife that you didn't realize she was carrying. "Yeah, I think we've gotten somewhere." But as she's cutting Daichi loose, she murmurs, "And you do _not_ want to make me regret setting you free."

Once the bonds are loose, and both men are sitting on chairs like normal people again, you smile. "How would you feel about getting entirely new identities—no felonies on your record to follow you around anymore? Because if you're honestly trying to make a go at an honest life… I can certainly do that for you."

The brothers look at each other, and then back at you—and, for the first time in thirty-odd years, you share a grin.


	8. Released

The past eight months have been as strenuous as ever, but there's something relaxing about checking in with the Okamotos—now the Yanagigawas, an identity you've thoroughly woven into recorded history in every way that could affect them—and finding new ways that they've started to thrive.

You've given them enough money, free and clear, for them to survive for five years doing absolutely nothing in the way of work. But Ken (still Ken—it's common enough) has kept his job—unsurprisingly—and they're doing their best not to waste the opportunity.

Daichi (now Dylan, which he insists on pronouncing _die-lun_ ) is taking pottery classes, and trying to earn his GED, something he didn't pursue while in prison. Ken's adjusting to the world of a free and unfettered internet, and, in addition to his regular job, he's studying pharmacology—hoping that he'll never have to use it, but wanting to be prepared. You've also invited him to join you at the next first aid class, an offer he happily accepted.

You can't reasonably get together all that often, not with everything else that you have to do, but an hour or three, once a month, has become a pleasure to look forward to. Out of the three of you, the one with the most exposure to modern gaming is _you_ —and that's pretty much exclusively flight simulators. So Ken buys games on Steam and, once a month, you try them out together.

It's not an activity that's interesting in and of itself, but, in context, with your oldest actual friends, it's quite pleasurable. Gives you a hint of modern culture that you're not normally exposed to—apparently there's a _much_ wider range of game genres than you could ever have imagined, back when you had time to devote to gaming.

Last month, they were watching you fumble your way through a 3D puzzle game narrated by a sarcastic female AI; the seemingly simple puzzles turned out to be less trivial than you expected, but the real challenge was in trying to get used to unfamiliar controls as your character repositioned boxes and defied the laws of physics. That, and trying not to imagine your _own_ AI going insane and homicidal.

Tonight, they'd offered up a 'crime boss simulator,' which hadn't exactly piqued your interest, although Dy had mocked up a version of you as the crime boss himself, complete with fancy suit. But now you're watching Ken throw himself into traffic, letting that ridiculous-looking Finch body bounce off cars and go flying through the air like a rag doll, somehow amassing points for 'insurance fraud.' It's just bizarre enough that it's got the three of you in gales of laughter.

* * *

As the evening wears down, you find yourself on the back balcony with Dylan, drinking light rum and bemoaning the light pollution that makes the sky so much less interesting than it was back in Ohio.

Taking another sip of rum, you finger a slip of paper in your pocket. And then you launch into the tale of Ulrich Kohl, the man who was so stuck in his past that, upon finding out that he had a daughter, ended up terrorizing her—turning the knowledge of her father as a sacrificial hero into the memory of a killer getting shot while pointing a gun in her mother's face.

Unsurprisingly, Dy doesn't have much sympathy for the man. You do, but you're not going to challenge the point. What Kohl did was understandable, yet unconscionable.

You're no longer worried that Dy might do the same. And so, tonight, you bring up the memory of Iffaa.

What you don't mention is that you've set up some alerts for if either of them go near Iffaa's neighborhood. You're not going to leave her unprotected, just in case, and letting them know about the controls would be tempting them to find ways around them. Still, as you explain to him what happened to her, as you watch the affection and understanding in Dylan's eyes, you doubt that it's going to be an issue.

Ten minutes later, you're passing a photo into his trembling hands.

He stares at it for a long moment, brushing his fingers along her face, her hair. "She's doing all right, then?" he asks, voice cracking.

"Just adopted her fourth child."

"And she's happy?"

"She's happy, Dy."

The tears start to roll down his cheeks again, and you can't pretend that yours are any drier. "Thank you," he whispers. "For the thought. But I think you're right: She's happier not even thinking about me."

"That's probably true."

"I wish… no. I can't even wish that I had known. I might have fixated on getting free just to track her down, end up ruining _her_ life instead of almost ruining yours." He turns to you. "But I'm glad to know that she got out of there. That she can have a good life now."

You return his smile, a similar thought running through your mind.


End file.
